Rainbow Six Siege – Best Tactical Shooter?
GameUtha April 19, 2022
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, released in 2015 rebooted the long running Rainbow Six franchise after the cancellation of Rainbow Six Patriot. The game was developed by Ubisoft Montreal and Published by Ubisoft. Siege reinvented the series by offering a multiplayer only tactical experience set in an attacker’s vs defenders experience. With both sides featuring a multitude of diverse operators each offering a unique ability and play style.
At launch the game received mostly positive reviews aimed at its tactical and refined playstyle but was met with criticism over its lack of content and an absence of a progression system. Upon its release Ubisoft claimed the game would have at least 10 years of support and currently in its sixth year, the game has seen many changes over the years both on the technical and content side.
Playstyle
In Rainbow Six Siege players compete in multiple game modes, including bomb disposals, hostage rescues, or securing areas. Each game has multiple rounds and begins with both teams selecting a map and voting out certain operators. The game continues until one side has won a total of 7 rounds. The 5v5 tactical gameplay requires communication between teammates for specific callouts. Players on the defending side can reinforce doors and windows and can also place traps, including shock walls and barbed wires. Some operator specific traps include Frost’s welcome mat, Ela’s Grzmot Mine and Kapkan’s entry denial device, these utilities make it very hard for the attackers to infiltrate the defending area. While Attackers like Thermite can melt through walls to allow for easy infiltration, and other operators like Zofia wield a grenade launcher allowing the player to clear out traps and walls.
The Evolution of Rainbow Six Siege
At launch player health was a major problem along with hit detection issues that were hurting the games tight gameplay loop and causing many players to turn away from the game completely, although these issues persisted for a while Ubisoft did rectify them along with implementing several new features including an operator and map ban system, allowing players to vote out the maps and operators they do not wish to have in the game. Additionally, lighting was overhauled and a pinging system was implemented allowing players to highlight certain objects or enemy players making communication easier amongst teammates.
The game also continually pushes out new operators, currently there are 63 unique playable operators across both the defender and attacker sides. This has kept the game fresh and exciting as each operator comes with their own set of learning curves from mastering their abilities and weapons to their movement and speed and with these new operators come balancing issues. Ubisoft has always stayed on top of these fixes making sure no operator has an advantage over others.
Rainbow Six Siege has also added multiple maps over it’s six years of support, including many fan favorites like Villa and Border, Ubisoft has been quick to address map exploits that allow unfair advantages to either of the two sides. Some major reworks have often completely changed up how certain maps play offering a much more balanced and fair experience.
In early 2021 Ubisoft completely overhauled the Siege’s UI and look, featuring a new logo. The game adopted a brighter look featuring the orange and blue often times associated with the games two sides (the attackers and defenders) to appeal to the esports side. Rainbow Six Siege’s Art Director, Alexander Karpazis said that the new design matches the tone of their new operators and seasons, he also added that the design speaks to what the player feels when they boot up the game.
Rainbow Six Mobile
On April 5th, 2022 Ubisoft announced Rainbow Six Mobile coming to iOS and Android later this year, it will feature a close resemblance to the full Rainbow Six Siege experience, including a multitude of operators, early gameplay footage indicates that the game will feature increased health and is directed more towards the casual crowd. Much is unknown about the game at this point beyond its open registration.
Competitive/Pro Scene
Although Siege doesn’t have the reach of games like Free Fire in Pakistan, it still boasts a sizeable competitive scene in Pakistan. Rainbow Six Siege Pakistan Champions League took place in 2019 and 2020. In 2020 it featured 14 teams, it came to a close in August of the same year with a final match between Ence and Xeo with Xeo coming out on top. In the same year the Pakistan Esports League (PESL) held its first season for Rainbow Six Siege. In addition to this the country also features many players ranking extremely well in the game and making a sizeable income through it as well with DOC7ER, M4KER and Ghost_Ranger007, each earning above $1000 in prize money.
Internationally, the pro scene has a much bigger presence The Rainbow Six Siege was an International Pro League which brought together the best teams from around the world. It was hosted and organized by the ESL in association with Ubisoft. The league started in March 2017, with 2 six-month events taking place in a year. The league had region pacific tournaments with additional subdivisions as well. Europe currently holds 16 medals while North America holds 11. Latin America and Asia Pacific holds 9 and 4 medals respectively.
Six Invitational is another professional Rainbow Six Siege tournament hosted by Ubisoft. The current prize pool of the tournament is $3 million. It attracts top teams from around the world including DarkZero Esports, DAMWON Gaming from Korea and MNM Gaming from the UK. The 2022 edition is set to take place in Stockholm, Sweden.
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